Burn

Burn

It started with a rainstorm, and it always ended with a rainstorm. "Rebecca Walkins", twenty-six years old and fresh from graduation from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She had made it so far in her life, made her parents proud, and her name was well known in the Ministry for being one of the most faithful and good serving Aurors since Alastor Moody.

She was a mere half muggle born, but the power she had in her witch blood had made it so often to forget. She had gotten the witch blood from her great grandmother, her parents were both muggles. Rebecca was walking among several sidewalks of the muggle town, and stopped near a streetlight nearby. She checked the sign: 1546 Bethesda RD.

This was it. The portkey. Raindrops were now splattering on Rebecca's emerald robes, but she clutched herself with her arms and shivered, knowing that in moments, she would have other worries to come. It was getting quite cold, and Rebecca looked around, admiring the suitable umbrellas that muggles carried as they hurried to their apartment buildings. Muggles looked at her rather swiftly as they passed by, eyeing her strange robes.

Rebecca shifted awkwardly. I knew I shouldn't have worn this, she thought uneasily. Becca was not very strict about muggle security, as she was raised in their own enviroment and felt very comfortable with them. But being an Auror for the last five years, she now felt stupid, knowing she should have disguised herself as a muggle.

Especially now. Especially since the rise of Voldemort. Rebecca shuddered, and unwilling tears began to form into her eyes. Memories flooded back into her brain.

-

"Becky!"

"Rebecca!"

"Mum, please, please be calm. Dad, take the silverware away. You guys need to leave. Right now, I mean it." Her voice was hurried, and her ability to be calm in all situations grew weary.

"Rebecca, who are those men?" asked her mother nervously, pointing at the several cloaked figures that stood before them, pointing at them with wands.

"Please, Mum, get out of here!" Rebecca screamed.

"Sweet Becky, your father's calling," a cold voice arupted her thoughts. Rebecca swung around and whimpered, looking at the man. He was wearing a long bundle of silver plaited cloaks, and a small smile was crawling his lips.

"How could you?" she gasped, her hand pulling tightly on her brown curls. Her control was getting away, slipping away slowly. She looked around the room and her hands, but there was no wand. No wand nearby, to save her own family.

"Dear Becky, did you really think I loved you?" the man chuckled. Rebecca shook her head, her eyes wide.

"Of course I didn't. I was a Ravenclaw, didn't you know? But that didn't stop me from being a complete dumbass and falling in love with you, now did it?" Becca was now clutching the ends of her robes, sweat falling omoniously on her forehead.

"You're just a mudblood, you know that, don't you, sweet Becky? The cleverest one I've met ... well, actually, I think I know a girl much more clever than you, but she was a silly little mudblood too."

"You - you evil little son of a bitch!"

"Now, let's do this the muggle way. Kill them, Nott and Blaster!" His voice deepened as two cloaked men grabbed kitchen knives.

"Isn't going to be fun, Rebecca, watching your father die? Your mudblood mother? Shame really. But the dark lord's orders always come first," he cackled.

"No!" Rebecca objected, trying to stand still. She looked away, and whimpered once more as she heard her mother's scream. Her father was speaking to her, but she did not hear as he yelled out also. Soon, she heard a clank of two bodies fall on the kitchen floor, and Rebecca faced the man once more, and she smiled.

"You're going to pay. Someday some girl's going to break your heart. It won't be me, but I swear to God, you'll get what you deserve," she said, shaking her head.

The smile vanished, and she grabbed the kitchen knife from one of the cloaked men.

She held it toward her chest, ready to plunge it into her body. Heartache was surrounding her, and the pain of her parent's screams were still ringing in her ears.

The smirk vanished from the man's face, and he leaped foward as she neared the knife.

"No!"

"Are you kidding me?" she whispered, looking crazed. "Are you kidding me? No? I thought you didn't love me. Well, I am glad you'll get your heart broken a little sooner."

The knife grew closer, inches away from her target. And then suddenly, there was an incantation that she heard him yell, and the world sent her into a twist of colors, and she felt oddly drowsy, and the knife, the shining beautiful knife that could have killed her, was rapidly swinging toward the floor, and landed with a clunk, while the room vanished, and the man looked at her, confused as she began to disappear.

"Goodbye, Draco Malfoy."

-

He had saved her. Draco Malfoy, the most honest, faithful Death Eater had saved her. Before she could kill herself and dawn herself in death, he had saved her. Rebecca Walkins fluttered her eyelashes and checked the muggle watch on her arm. It was time. She reached out and touched the streetlight with one finger, and felt a sudden tug beyond her navel, before she was swirling into a mix of colors.

Soon, she fell on a hard surface that was damp. Blinking her eyes open into vision, she sniffed a sudden copper smell. Disgusted, she brushed the dirt off of her emerald robes, and examined the small cubicle of the room.

"Ms. Walkins?" a voice suddenly said behind her. Rebecca turned around and her face broke into a grin.

"Fredrick Weasley! Well, well, my my, I didn't think I'd see you after graduation!" she said, her grin turning more and more wider as she spoke.

"Becky!" he exclaimed, pulling her into his arms.

"So, how's life treating you? Never thought you'd end up in the Ministry, huh?" she said teasingly.

"And I am still wondering how. Just got married to Angelina a few weeks ago. Shame you didn't come to the wedding, but when I owled your house, I got a reply that you went to Egypt for Auror buisness. Working hard, eh?" he said, a hand running through his organic flaming hair.

"Well you didn't expect anything less while the madman is still out there, did you? No, no, I am keeping my cake and eating it too. So how's Angelina? And, oh George, your adorable brother? I hear he's quite sucessful as a beater in the new Chudley Cannons team? Oh and Ronald? He was such a sweetheart..." She stopped talking as she saw the stricken look on Fred's face.

"Fred? Fred?" she asked.

"Beck, I thought you'd heard the news."

"What news?" she asked, her eyebrows raised. "I haven't heard much news...I've been traveling since Graduation at Hogwarts."

"Ron's dead, Beck..."

The silence was such an awkward one that Rebecca felt as if they were both dead.

"Oh my," she murmured, her eyelids itching. A lump in her throat was forming, and she clutching the end of a nearby table to keep her balance.

"Oh Beck, I shouldn't have said anything I mean your parents - it must be horrible to have memories like that -"

"Ron's dead? But how - why?" Rebecca's voice cracked easily.

"You remember, Hermione Granger? Brainy, brown haired Gryffindor? Golden Girl in the famous trio?" he asked.

Rebecca smiled at the memory of her. She had a faint recall of memory when Hermione had once been second year, and Rebecca was in her fourth year, running after Ryan Devons in the hallway, and the little twelve year old girl had actually scolded at her.

"Of course! Never saw her without Harry Potter and Ronald, did you? Dated the famous Viktor Krum herself when I was in my sixth year! Oh what a classy girl she was -"

"She killed him."

The smile vanished quickly, and was replaced by a sudden gape of Becca's mouth.

"She - she killed him?" Rebecca repeated, as if she had heard wrong.

"Controlled by the Imperius curse," was all Fred retorted.

"That little bitch," Rebecca exclaimed, grinding her teeth.

"Beck, Herm was a muggle born, she was under the curse for so long, but Ron wouldn't kill her to rid of her misery. You don't have an idea what your talking about."

"The hell I don't, Fredrick Weasley! She should've killed herself than! It's what - it's what I would've done," she stammered.

"She tried to, Beck. She did."

There was another fresh silence as Rebecca frowned, avoiding Fred's eyes.

"Why are you here anyway?"

"I need a permit admission to Azkaban," she said with flourish. Fred widened his eyes.

"You kidding me? You're just screwing with me, right?"

"Now, Fred! You have a wife!" Rebecca joked, blinking innocently. Fred chuckled a bit before responding sternly.

"You know what it's like there, Bec. No way am I going to let one of my favorite girls suffer. What the hell you on?"

She rolled her eyes. "Listen, Fred, I've only been there once, and I know what it's like. You have no idea. But I never came home shivering because you know why? I think, that since those bastards participated in muggleborn slaughter, they should suffer. They deserve it. I take pleasure in their misery, their agony."

Her friend's eyes narrowed suspiciously at her. Fred had never seen her act so calm in the subject of her parent's death, nor other muggleborns. This was dangerous. No wonder she wasn't put in Gryffindor, he thought logically. She sure had the brains, but she wasn't all innocent. She knew what it was like to have sweet revenge at the bitter tip of her tongue.

"Anyways, I wanted to interview Thomas, he's the most dangerous death eater out there...it'd be great! Imagine what - what's wrong?" she suddenly interrupted her own speech to glance at her friend, who looked fearful.

"No, Beck. I won't let you. I'm sorry, but I am not going to let you die yourself. He may be non-dangerous because of the dementors, but he's the only one that hasn't died yet in three weeks living there. He has some strength, and I don't want you near him," he said thoughtfully.

Rebecca started to protest when suddenly, a man apparated into the room. She jumped a bit, and looked into the face of Edward Hamilton, one of her auror companions. Instead of his usual nervous, and friendly smile, his face was stern and stricken.

"Hamilton. What is it?" Fred barked at him. Edward glared at him, and then turned to Rebecca.

"Finally. I found you. We need you, Beck. Local witches sighted death eaters near Lonewood. If we get there fast, we can disarm them."

Rebecca didn't need to know. She waved a hasty goodbye to Fred, who looked fearfully again back at her, and then apparated with hurriedly with Edward.

Soon, they appeared to be in a deserted piece of land, but Edward grabbed her hand and took out his wand and placed it behind his back.

"Quick, get your wand out."

She obeyed, and imitated him, extremely nervous. She didn't have much experience locating death eaters, but she took an intake of her breath and stepped forward, her eyes aware and alert.

"CRUCIO!" a croaky voice roared at her side. Before she knew what was happening, she saw Edward falling to the ground, clutching himself in pain.

"Ed!" Rebecca yelled, and turned back to see the culprit. It was a hooded figure, who was struggling hard to apparate. Rebecca quickly disarmed the invader and the hooded figure fell on the ground, struggling to get out of Rebecca's tight embrace.

"Stay still!" she said, pointing her wand to the culprit's neck. She removed the whole cloak from the figure's body, and her eyes instinctively wandered to the right arm, and she caught sight of it...the dark mark.

This was a death eater. She felt a grin creeping to her face, but it vanished quickly when she regonized the familiar face of the death eater.

"Hermione Granger?"